Just a really short piece I wrote... Felt like sharing... :)
Perseverance
Red Balloon
Rises
From Child's grasp
Curly pigtail waving goodbye
Rising Up and Over
School's Blacktop Crime Scenes,
Cyclone Fence Jails
Over
Imposing Skyscrapers
Filled to capacity
With Suits Wistfully Watching
It rise into Smog-Choked Skies
Eating through Cotton Candy Clouds...
Latex Dimpling
Rising Undeterred--
Pop!
That's a fun one. Last stanza is nice, but might need to be worded differently to match the others in form. If you wanted to leave that alone you could, as if could also o be interpreted as the balloon popping. Otherwise, I love the structure, the imagery, and the detail. It makes the image come alive.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your poem, Ashley! (: The first two stanzas had me wondering about how many more places loose balloons have gone compared to me... What have they 'seen' that is foreign to me? I especially like the lines "With Suits Wistfully Watching / It rise into Smog-Choked Skies / Eating through Cotton Candy Clouds...". The alliteration of the w sound is wonderful; it's like the wist gets personified. And then the smoggy skies are contrasted with cotton candy... I feel it's almost as if to say the dreary, dirty sky can't hinder my dreams. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDelete-- Marcie
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ReplyDeleteAshley, love this experiment and have some ideas about it for our conference (along with ideas about a few other pieces). You seem to me to be going this direction (see poem pasted below)— I love this piece by William Carlos Williams. Notice how to get the most possible power out of the poem, he erases almost every scrap of sentiment, just that one word "man"… There's a scene in "American Beauty" with a bag blowing in the wind like this. Also, you know the cummings poem I'm sure about the balloon man "in Just-" :) — keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteThe Term
A rumpled sheet
Of brown paper
About the length
And apparent bulk
Of a man was
Rolling with the
Wind slowly over
And over in
The street as
A car drove down
Upon it and
Crushed it to
The ground. Unlike
A man it rose
Again rolling
With the wind over
And over to be as
It was before.